Fox Sports concedes late EPL winner to Optus

There's nothing more exciting than a last-minute winner at a packed English Premier League ground sending the huge crowd wild, and leaving millions of television viewers with smiles on their faces.

It's a feeling executives at Singtel-Optus will be familiar with after pulling off a stunning coup in winning the EPL broadcast rights for Australia in a deal that is going to cost them $US45 million ($63 million) annually for three years from August 2016 onwards.

And just like that EPL team that concedes a heart-breaking late goal, incumbent rights hold Fox Sports has the look of a crestfallen combatant, sprawled on the ground wondering what just happened – and how they let it happen.

Optus has struck a blow to Fox Sports and Telstra by winning broadcast rights to the English Premier League. Getty Images

Sentiment-wise at least the deal is a big blow for Fox Sports, which is wholly-owned by News Corp, and Foxtel, jointly owned by News and Telstra. There are plenty of subscribers around the country who have Foxtel subscriptions for the EPL coverage, as well as the domestic A-League competition.

Crucially, both the EPL and A-League take place in the summer and away from the dominant AFL and NRL seasons. Subscribers that otherwise would turn off their Foxtel subscription in the summer – and there is a decent number that do – have a compelling reason to stick with it given the EPL is the most popular and compelling football competition in the world.

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In short, losing the EPL is a bad look for Fox Sports. And another blow for its summer line-up (to which it has recently added the National Basketball League) after it lost the Big Bash League Twenty20 cricket rights to network Ten two years ago. The line-up will definitely look thinner without the EPL.

In terms of finances, it may be a different matter. The money Optus are paying in order to stave off rival bids from Fox Sports and the Qatar-owned BeinSports is more than double the $20 million to 25 million Fox Sports is currently paying for the EPL.

Fox Sports may make as little as $6 million from showing EPL – most of the action is overnight Australian-time, which is not exactly the easiest time to sell advertising – but saving the near $25 million each year gives it more money to spend on something else.

That could mean a rise for the A-League, which currently gets close to $40 million annually from Fox Sports and SBS, though Fox Sports is already set to pay an additional $20 million for rugby union rights.

Attention in the short term, however, will turn to the NRL rights. Fox Sports could be poised to win back access to all NRL games on Saturday, which looked lost when rugby league sold its free-to-air rights to Nine Entertainment Co in a stunning five-year $925 million deal in August.

Nine looks set to play ball and sell-back the NRL Saturday game it gained to Fox Sports. It would be a face-saving deal for the pay-television operator. Which is something it needs after losing its EPL battle to Optus.

John Stensholt is a former editor of the BRW Rich 200 and Young Rich Lists.

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